CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER III.1806-1812.THE SYMPHONY C MINOR—THE PASTORALE AND THE SEVENTH SYMPHONIES.

1806-1812.

THE SYMPHONY C MINOR—THE PASTORALE AND THE SEVENTH SYMPHONIES.

The Pastorale—Its Composition—Meaning of the Apassionata—Its History—Beethoven’s Letter to His “Immortal Loved One”—His Own Opinion of the Apassionata—New Acquaintances—Thinks of Writing Operas—Court-theater Composer—Overture to Coriolanus—The Mass in C., op. 86—His Sacred Music—The Fidelio in Prague—Music for Goethe’s Faust—“Power, the Moral Code”—Power Expressed in Beethoven’s Music—Character of His Works about this Period—Intercourse with the Malfattis—The Cello Sonata, op. 69—Other Compositions and their Meaning—Improvement in His Pecuniary Circumstances—Joseph Bonaparte—Vienna Fears to Lose Him—Contemplated Journey to England—The Seventh Symphony—Wagner on the Seventh Symphony—HisHeirathspartie—His Letter to Bettina—His Estimate of Genius.

Beethoven’sHeiligenstadt Will, written in the year 1802, closed with this painful appeal: “O thou, Providence, let one day more of joy dawn on me. How long have I been a stranger to the heartfelt echo of true happiness! When, when, O God, can I feel it once more in the temple of nature and of man.Never? No! O, that were too hard!” Our artist’s thoughts were thus directed into channels which carried him far from the scenes immediately surrounding him into regions of a higher existence—of an existence which he soon described so exquisitely in the language of music. ThePastoralewhich celebrates this “Temple of nature” was originally designated as No. 5, and was, therefore, intended to be completed before the symphony in C minor. But it would seem that Beethoven had to go through many an internal conflict, the result of his great depression of spirits, before he could acquire the calmness of mind necessary to form a proper conception of the “Peace of God in Nature,” and to give it proper form and expression in art.

Breuning wrote, on the 2nd of June, 1806, that the intrigues about theFideliowere all the more disagreeable to Beethoven because the fact that it had not been performed reduced him to some pecuniary straits, and that it would take all the longer time for him to recover, as the treatment he had received deprived him of a great deal of his love for his work. Yet the first of the quartets, op. 59,bears the memorandum: “Begun on the 26th of May, 1806;” and the fourth symphony (op. 60), as well as the violin concerto (op. 61), also belong to this year. In the meantime op. 56, which had been begun some time previous, the triple concerto, op. 57, called theApassionata, and op. 58, the fourth concerto, were all either continued or finished. What wealth there is here—in the number of compositions, in their magnitude and in their contents! The three quartets are dedicated to Count Rasumowsky, who had given Beethoven the commission to write them, and who had furnished the Russian melodies on which they are based. How well theadagioof the second of them points us to that higher region in which Beethoven now felt himself more and more at home. He himself told Czerny that thatadagiosuggested itself to him one night, when he was contemplating the starry heavens, and thinking of the harmony of the spheres. In the serene calmness of these vanishing tones, we see the revolution of the stars mirrored in all its grandeur. Here all pain seems lightened, all passion stilled. Yet how both had raged even in theApassionata,the draft of which is to be found immediately following that of theFidelio. TheApassionatais written in his heart-blood. Its tones are cries of excitement the most painful. It was finished in the summer, and dedicated to Count Franz Brunswick. An oil painting of the count’s sister, Countess Theresa, was found among Beethoven’s effects, after his death. It bore the superscription: “To the rare genius, the great artist, the good man. From T. B.” It is supposed that the letter to his “immortal love,” already referred to, was addressed to her—and it is truly a letter which gives us a pen-picture of Beethoven’s condition of mind at that time, and which affords an idea of the “gigantic sweep of his ideas.” It was found after his death, together with other important papers, in an old chest, and is dated on July 6, from a watering place in Hungary. It is rightly supposed to have been written in the year 1806, in which Beethoven paid a visit to the Brunswicks. But, be this as it may, it gives evidence of intense feeling, and shows that Beethoven now dwelt on that sublime height on which all earthly desires are silent. It seems also to lead usover to the understanding and appreciation of Beethoven’s subsequent creations, which henceforth gain an ideal character not of this earth. We can here touch only on the principal points in these letters.

“My angel, my all, my other self.” Thus does he begin it on the 6th of July, in the morning. He proceeds: “Only a few words to-day, and those in lead-pencil, and that your own pencil, dear. Nothing can be settled about my dwelling until to-morrow. What a wretched loss of time for such trifles! Why this deep affliction where necessity speaks? How can our love continue to exist except through sacrifice, except by limitation of our desires? Can you change the fact that you are not entirely mine nor I entirely yours? Look out on the beauties of nature, and resign yourself to what must be. Love asks everything, and rightly so. It does in my case. It does in your case. But you forget too easily that I have to live for you as well as for myself. Were we entirely one, you would feel the pain there is in this as little as I.... We shall, I trust, soon meet.... I cannot tell you to-day what reflections I have made upon my life, during the past forty-eight hours. Were our hearts always close to one another, I am sure I should make no such reflections. My heart is too full to tell you much. There are moments when I find that language is nothing at all. Cheer up; be my faithful, my only pet, my all, as I am all yours. The gods must direct the rest in our lives. Thy faithfulLudwig.”

Ludwig.”

But, on the same dainty little piece of note paper, he continues, for the mail had already left:

“You suffer, dearest creature. Wherever I am, you are with me. I must try to so arrange it that our life may be one. But what, what a life to be thus without you! I am pursued by the kindness of men which I do not intend to earn, and yet, which I really do earn. That a man should humble himself before his fellow man, pains me; and when I consider myself as a part of the universe, what am I, and who is He they call the Most High? And yet here, again, we find the divine in that which is human.... No matter how great your love for me, my love for you is greater still. Never hide yourself from me. Good night! Being an invalid, I must go to sleep. Alas, that I should be so near and yet so far from you. Is not our love a real firmament of heaven? And is it not as firm as the foundation of the heavens?”

He takes up the same piece of paper once more:

“Good morning, this 7th of July! Even before I rise my thoughts fly to you, dear—to you, immortal love, now joyfully, now sadly, waiting to see whether the fates will hear our prayer. If I shall live at all, it must be with you. I am resolved to wander about far away from you, until the time comes when I may fly into your arms, and say that I belong to you; until I may send my soul absolved by you, dear, into the land of spirits.Yes, unfortunately it must be so. You will be all the more composed, since you know how faithful I am to you. Another can never possess my heart—never! Why, O God, must a man be so widely separated from the object of his love? And yet the life I now live in Vienna is so wretched! Your love makes me, at once, the happiest and the most unfortunate of men. At my present age, there should be some uniformity in my life; but is such a thing possible in my present circumstances? Be patient. Only by the patient contemplation of our existence can we gain our object and live united. Be patient! love me! How I longed and wept for you to-day and yesterday; you, my life, my all! Farewell; love me ever, never forget the most faithful heart of thy beloved Ludwig. I am ever thine and thou forever mine.”

How completely like Beethoven! It was during this very summer that he completed theApassionata, which he always considered the greatest of his sonatas, at the home of the Brunswicks. Can it be said that its language is in anything greater than the language of this letter? He seems at this time to be nearly always possessed by a feeling of melancholy. But for this very reason he took refuge more than ever in music. It was, indeed, a real sanctuary to him, and he refused to open that sanctuary to the eyes of strangers, and, least of all, to the eyes of enemies. This he veryplainly proved to Prince Lichnowsky during the fall. Beethoven had left Hungary and was spending some time in Silesia with the prince. The latter desired him to play for some French officers who were quartered in his castle. A violent scene immediately ensued. After it was over, Beethoven left the castle. He refused to go back with the prince who had followed him, but repaired, post haste, back to Vienna, in which city the prince’s bust was broken to pieces as an expiatory sacrifice. It was not long, however, before the old friendship of the two was re-established.

In the quartet sketches of this year, we find the words: “Just as you can cast yourself here into the whirl of society, it is possible to write operas spite of all social impediments. Let the fact that you do not hear be a mystery no longer, even in your music.” This “whirl of society” introduces us to some new acquaintances. Count Rasumowsky held very brilliant soirées, at which the amiable and charming wife of his librarian, Marie Bigot, performed some of Beethoven’s works in an exquisite manner. The playing of the elegant and handsome Countess Marie Erdoedy, whomBeethoven himself called his “father confessor,” was not inferior to that of Madame Bigot. Other patrons of the musical art were Madame Dorothea von Ertmann, a charming Frankfort lady, and the Malfattis, one of whom was Beethoven’s physician. The home of Streicher, who had married Nanette Stein, daughter of the Augsburg piano-maker, described in Mozart’s letter of 1777 in so droll a manner, was the rendezvous of lovers of music. Nor must we forget to mention Prince Lobkowitz and the Emperor’s youngest brother, the Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven’s distinguished pupil, who, as our artist himself admitted, understood music thoroughly.

The chief value, however, of the works quoted above, is that they inform us how Beethoven, spite of his experience with theFidelio, was thinking very seriously of the writing of “operas.” If successful here, his fortune was made, and there was nothing then to hinder the crowning of his love by marriage. There now seemed to be a very good prospect of that success, for, in the year 1807, the two court-theaters passed into the hands of a company of noblemen, with Lobkowitz attheir head. Lobkowitz immediately called upon Beethoven to act as composer for the Court-theater. Our artist accepted the position, and bound himself to write at least one great opera and operetta each year, and to supply whatever other music might be needed. A feeling of inexhaustible power must have inspired him at this time, when he was actuated by the tenderest love, with the utmost confidence in self. A forcible proof of this is the overture which he then wrote to Collins’sCoriolanus. But the gentlemen did not accede to his wishes; they did not want to trust him as composer of instrumental music in this point; and thus Beethoven, although not particularly pleased by the action of his princely friends, was, fortunately for himself and for us, retained in the field of labor most in harmony with his disposition.

“If it be true that genuine strength and a fullness of deep feeling characterize the Germans, we must say that Beethoven was, above all, a German artist. In this, his most recent work, we cannot but admire the expressiveness and depth of his music, which so grandly painted the wild, perturbed mind ofCoriolanus,and the sudden and terrible change in his fate, while it elicited the sublimest emotion.” These lines are from an account of a concert given in theAugartenby Lichnowsky in the spring of 1807. But we have very reliable information that Beethoven was now engaged on the symphony in C minor and on thePastorale. Thanks to Clementi, who was doing a large and thriving music business in London, and to his old friend Simrock, in Bonn, which was French at the time, he felt at his ease so far as money matters were concerned. He writes to Brunswick on the 11th of May, 1807: “I can now hope to be able, in a few years, to maintain the dignity of a real artist.” And when, in the same letter, we read the farther passage, “Kiss your sister Theresa. Tell her that I fear that I shall become great without a monument, to which she has contributed,” we can understand how love, fame and lofty intuition conspired to fit him for new and mighty exploits in art.

The next work published by Beethoven was the Mass in C, op. 86, which Esterhazy gave him a commission to write. But here Beethoven, even more than in opera, missed thespirit of his subject. The Mass bears witness to his intellect, and has all the charms of sound; but it is not a religious composition. When Beethoven himself wrote to Esterhazy, as he did at this time: “Shall I tell you that it is not without many misgivings that I shall send you the Mass, for I know you are accustomed to have the inimitable works of the great Haydn performed for you,” he proves that he did not understand the real spirit of church music; for Haydn had, just as little as Beethoven, a true conception of what church music is. Haydn was now seventy-six years old, and Beethoven attended a performance of hisCreationthe following year, and, with a number of the distinguished nobility, received the celebrated guest at the door. The fame of the man whom he was thus called upon to honor, was a type of what his own was destined one day to be. And what his own fame would be, the production of the great works he had recently finished, must have enabled him to foresee. When the Mass was performed, in September, 1807, in Eisenstadt, our composer had a personal falling out—the result of a misunderstanding—with Mozart’spupil, Hummel; and one which was not made up for for some years. The prince had criticised Beethoven’s Mass by asking the strange question: “But, my dear Beethoven, what have you been doing now?” Hummel could not help laughing at this strange mode of criticism. Beethoven supposed he was laughing at his work; and after this would have nothing more to do with the prince.

It was otherwise with the magnanimous, noble lover of art, Prince Lobkowitz, one of the principal grandees of Bohemia, and one of the principal patrons of the theater. To him Beethoven was indebted for the suggestion that theFidelioshould be performed in Prague. For the occasion, Beethoven wrote, in this year, 1807, the overture, op. 138, which is, therefore, to be accounted not the second, but the thirdLeonoreoverture. The performance of theFidelio, however, did not take place until 1814, the same year in which it was performed in Vienna. In the following summer (1808), it was publicly announced that “the gifted Beethoven had conceived the idea to put Goethe’s Faust to music, as soon as he could find any one to prepare it for the stage.” The firstpart of Faust had appeared in 1807, as a “tragedy;” and, as we shall see, the poem made a deep impression on our artist. Long after, and even on his death-bed, it occupied his thoughts. But he had, even now, written some Faust music—the symphony in C minor. To it we now turn, for it is one of the greatest of Beethoven’s creations.

We have seen how Beethoven himself once said: “Power is the moral code of men who distinguish themselves above others.” And so we hear how one person described him as “power personified;” how another said of him that “a Jupiter occasionally looked out through his eyes:” and a third, that “his magnificent forehead was the seat of majestic, creative power.” Spurred on by the opposition of “fate,” that is, by what nature had denied him, we see this power appear in all its concentration and sublimity. The power which has created, and which preserves all things, has been called “will,” and music, one of its immediate phenomena, while the other arts are only reflections of that will, and reflect only the things of the world. In the first movement of the symphony in C minor, we feelthe presence of this power or personal will, to an extent greater than in any other work of art. It there appears in fullest action, in all its nobility. The symphony might not inappropriately have been called the Jupiter-symphony; for it is a veritable head of Jove, such as only a Phidias could have imagined. Melody has been described as the history of the will illuminated by reason, and the sonata-form of the symphony is just such kind of melody. And it is this fifth symphony of Beethoven’s, which, more than any other, tells us the most secret history of that personal will, of all its strivings and motions. No type in any art, could have suggested a Siegfried to Richard Wagner. Here Beethoven’s genius acts as force, as will, and as the conscious intelligence of the prototype of the Great Spirit. Yet when the work was performed in Paris, Hector Berlioz heard his teacher, Lessieur, say of it—and this, although he was deeply moved by it—“but such music should not be heard.” “Don’t be afraid,” was the reply, “there will be little of that kind of music written.” How correct was the insight of the gifted Frenchman! Siegfried’sRheinfahrt, in theGoetterdaemmerung, is music of “that kind.”

But it is only the night of sorrow that gives birth to the concentration of power. It is only by great effort that this energy can be maintained. And as Coriolanus finely presses all the darts aimed at him by his mother into her own heart, in defying sacrifice, so we find, in the background of this holiest and most manly will, the consciousness of the variety and transitory character of all things. In his heart of hearts, Beethoven feels that fate has knocked at his door, only because in his following the dictates of force and action, he has sinned against nature, and that all will is only transitoriness and self-deception. Theadagioexpresses subjection to a higher will. The consciousness of this highest act of the will, to sacrifice one’s self and yet to preserve one’s freedom, gave birth to the song of jubilation in thefinalewhich tells not of the joy and sorrow of one heart only; it lifts the freedom which has been praised and sought for into the higher region of moral will. Thus the symphony in C minor has a significance greater than any mere “work of art.” Like the production of religious art, it is a representation of those secret forces which hold the world together.

The consciousness of this deeper, intimate dependence of all things on one another, is henceforth seen like a glimmer of light in the darkness which gathered around him, and it continues to beautify and transfigure his creations.

ThePastoraleimmediately followed the symphony in C minor. It gives expression to the peace of nature and to the fulfillment of the saying: “Look out on the beauties of nature and calm your soul by the contemplation of what must be.” While the fourth symphony compared with the fifth, is a symphony and nothing more—even if it be Beethoven’s—we plainly discover in this sixth, the poetic spirit, the pure feeling of God. The idea and character it illustrates constitutes in Beethoven’s life the transition from the external beauty of nature to the comprehension of the eternal. Over it is written: “Recollections of country life,” but also, “More an expression of feeling than a painting.” “The Beethovens loved the Rhine,” the young playmates of the boy Ludwig were wont to say, and he wrote himself to Wegeler: “Before me is the beautiful region in which I first saw the light as plainlyand as beautiful as the moment I left you.” On a leaf, written in his own hand, we find the words: “O the charm of the woods—who can express it?” But now that he was compelled to live a solitary life, nature became to him a mother, sister and sweetheart. He looked upon the wonders of nature as into living eyes; she calmed him who was naturally of such a stormy temperament, and to whom life had been unkind in so many ways. In theScene am Bach(Scene by the Brook), the waters murmur peace to his soul; and the birds by the brooklet, in Heiligenstadt, where these two symphonies were finished, whisper joy. HisLustiges Zusammensein der Landleute, infuses new courage into the heart, and when hisGewitter und Sturm, tells of the might of the Eternal, the shepherds express their joyful and grateful feelings in the words:Herr wir danken dir. Thefinale, like theChorphantasie(op. 80), planned in 1800 but not finished until 1808, was intended to contain a chorus expressing in words the joyful and thankful feeling of the people. Beethoven’s own personal experience is always expressed in his music. A more intimateacquaintance with nature gave it to him to find yet deeper expression for the feelings which it excites in our hearts, as its everlasting change enabled him to conceive the eternal and imperishable.

We now turn to a whole series of new and brilliant creations of our hero. It would seem as if his intercourse with the eternal in nature had given him new life.

During these years, Beethoven’s intimacy with the Malfattis and their two charming daughters, was a great source of pleasure to him. His feelings towards them may be inferred from the following passages in his notes to his friend Gleichenstein. He writes: “I feel so well when I am with them that they seem able to heal the wounds which bad men have inflicted on my heart.”... “I expect to find there in theWilden Mannin the park, no wild men, but beautiful graces.” And again: “My greetings, to all who are dear to you and to me. How gladly would I add—and to whom we are dear???? These points of interrogation are becoming, at least in me.” Gleichenstein married the second daughter, Anna Malfatti, in 1811. To the young dark-eyedTheresa, who made her debut in society about this time, and whom he writes of as “volatile, taking everything in life lightly” but “with so much feeling for all that is beautiful and good, and a great talent for music,” he sends a sonata, and recommends Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister and Schlegel’s translation of Shakespeare. We thus see that his intercourse with the family had that intellectual foundation which Beethoven could not dispense with, on anything. It would even seem as if, in his enthusiasm to put his strength to the test of new deeds, even his “eternal loved one” should fade from his view.

The cello sonata (op. 69) dedicated to his friend Gleichenstein immediately followed thePastorale. The two magnificent trios dedicated to Countess Erdoedy, with whom he resided at this time, follow as op. 70. The first movement of the trio in D major is a brilliantly free play of mind and force, while theadagiosuggests Faust lost in the deep contemplation of nature and its mysteries. The whole, on account of the mysterious awe expressed by this movement has been called by musicians theFledermaustrio, i. e., the bat-trio.TheLeonoreis numbered op. 72. It was published in 1810. Op. 73, the most beautiful of all concertos, was dedicated to the Archduke Rudolph. We have further, op. 74, the harp-quartet, dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, and the fantasia for the piano, op. 77, to his friend Brunswick; lastly, the sonata in F sharp major, op. 78, very highly valued by Beethoven himself, dedicated to his sister Theresa. Verily “new acts” enough, and what glorious deeds!

This brings us to the year 1809, which witnessed a change for the better in Beethoven’s pecuniary circumstances. He now received a permanent salary. On the 1st of November, 1808, he wrote to the Silesian Count, Oppersdorf,—whom he had visited in the fall of 1806, in company with Lichnowsky, and who gave him a commission to write a symphony, which the count, however, never received—as follows: “My circumstances are improving without the assistance of people who entertain their friends with blows. I have also been called to act ascapellmeisterto the King of Westphalia, and perhaps I may obey the call.” The following December, Beethoven gave a great concert, theprogramme of which embraced the two new symphonies, parts of his Mass, the concerto in G minor, and theChorphantasie. He himself improvised at the piano. The attention of people far and near was called anew to this great and grave master in music, whom the sensualist Jerome Bonaparte endeavored to attract to his Capua in Cassel, and they became anxious lest he might leave Vienna. Beethoven’s friends bestirred themselves to keep him in Vienna, as did Beethoven himself to stay. This is very evident from the letters to Gleichenstein and Erdoedy. Three friends of his, to whom it was largely due that he wrote one of his greatest works, were instrumental in keeping him in Vienna. They were the Archduke Rudolph, Prince Lobkowitz and Prince Kinsky, to whose wife the six songs, op. 75, are dedicated. The sum guaranteed amounted to eight thousand marks. “You see, my dear good Gleichenstein,” he writes, on the 18th of March, 1809,a proposof the “decree” which he had received on the 26th of February, from the hands of the archduke, and which imposed on him no duty but to remain in Vienna and Austria, “how honorableto me my stay here has become.” He could not, however, have meant seriously what he added immediately after: “The title of imperialcapellmeisterwill come to me also;” for what use had a man like the Emperor Franz for such an “innovator” at his court? The dedications of his works mentioned above were simply testimonials of gratitude for the friendship thus shown him.

He now planned an extensive journey, which was to embrace England, and even Spain. He writes to Gleichenstein: “Now you can help me get a wife. If you find a pretty one—one who may perhaps lend a sigh to my harmonies, do the courting for me. But she must be beautiful; I cannot love anything that is not beautiful; if I could I should fall in love with myself.” The coming war interrupted all his plans. But, at the same time, it suggested to the imagination of our artist, that wonderful picture of the battle of forces, the seventh (A major) symphony (op. 92), which Richard Wagner has called the “apotheosis of the dance.” Germany now first saw the picture of a genuinely national war. Napoleon appeared as Germany’s hereditaryfoe, and the whole people, from the highest noble to the meanest peasant rose up, as one man, to fight the battle of freedom. The march is, after all, only the dance of war, and Beethoven gathered into one picture of instrumentation, the glad tramp of warlike hosts, the rhythm of trampling steeds, the waving of standards and the sound of trumpets, with a luminousness such as the world had never witnessed before. The poet needs only see the eddy created by a mill-wheel to paint the vapor and foam of Charybdis. In the case of Beethoven, this joy in the game of war was, as the character of Bonaparte, on another occasion, a stimulant to his imagination, which now painted a picture of the free play of force and of human existence from the material of recent historical events. And even in after years the timeliness of this work and the spirit which called it into existence were evident. And, as we shall soon see, it constituted the principal part in the musical celebration, when, in 1813, the real war of emancipation occurred and led to a most decided victory. Personally, Beethoven felt himself not inferior to the mighty conqueror in natural power, and,like Schiller, he clearly foresaw the awakening of the national genius which overthrew Napoleon. To this second-sight of the prophet, possessed by every genuine poet—to this sure presentiment of ultimate triumph—our artist owed it, that, even in the days of Germany’s greatest ignominy and subjection he sang of the disenthrallment of the mind and of the jubilation of victory. Napoleon defeated the Austrians again. But as Beethoven first felt the weight and the power of resistance of Germany after the battles of Aspern and Wagram, he now depicted (after Napoleon had taken the Emperor’s daughter to wife and seemed predestined to become the despot of all Europe), in thescherzoandfinaleof the seventh symphony, better than ever before, the jubilation of the victorious nation, with all its popular feasts and games. Yet, in the melancholy second part, with its monotonous beats on thedominante, we think we hear the gloomy rhythm of a funeral march. This exceedingly characteristic theme is found at the very beginning of a sketch-book of the year 1809.

Affairs were for a time in a very bad conditionin Vienna and all Austria. The burthen of taxation was severely felt. Everything was at a standstill. When his beloved pupil, the Archduke Rudolph retreated from Vienna he wrote theLebewohlof the sonata op. 81a; but itsfinale(die Ankunft) was not written until the 30th of January, 1810. The summer was a dreary one to Beethoven, and there was no demand for the exercise of his genius. Following Ph. E. Bach, Kirnberger, Fux and Albrechtsberger he prepared theMateriellen zum Generalbass(materials for thorough-bass) for his noble pupil. This work was subsequently but wrongly published under the name ofBeethoven’s Studien. On the 8th of September, a charity concert was given at which—to the disgrace of the period, be it said, for Napoleon had only just left Schoenbrunn—theEroicawas performed, Beethoven himself holding the baton. The rest of the summer he hoped to spend in some quiet corner in the country. He sojourned sometime with the Brunswicks in Hungary, and composed those works of his genius, op. 77 and 78. His genius, indeed, seems to have awakened to a new life during this fall of1809. For the sketch-book of the seventh symphony (op. 92) contains sketches of the 8th (op. 93) also; and Beethoven contemplated giving another concert at Christmas, at which, of course, only new works could be performed. These sketches are followed by drafts for a new concerto. On these drafts we find the words:Polonaise fuer Clavier allein, alsoFreude schoener Goetterfunken—“finish the overture” and “detached periods like princes are beggars, not the whole.” He here takes up once more those ideas of his youth, but with a grander conception of their meaning. They constitute the intellectual germ of thefinaleof the ninth symphony. But the melody which he actually noted down was elaborated in 1814 into the overture op. 115 (Zur Namensfeier).

During this period of Germany’s national awakening, the theaters had again turned their attention to Schiller’s dramas. The effect of this was to revive Beethoven’s youthful ideas. He now desired to giveTella musical dress. He had already received a commission of this kind for theEgmont, and, on the occasion of his receiving it, he gave expressionto a remarkable opinion. Said he to Czerny: “Schiller’s poems are exceedingly difficult to set to music. The composer must be able to rise high above the poet. But who can rise higher than Schiller? Goethe is much easier.” And, indeed, hisEgmontoverture breathes a higher spirit and takes a loftier flight than Goethe’s beautiful tragedy. The composition of this music led to his more intimate acquaintance with the poet. To this same year, 1810, belong the incomparable songsKennst du das Land, andHerz mein Herz, in op. 75.

This year, 1810, brings us to a somewhat mysterious point in Beethoven’s life, to hisHeirathspartie(marriage speculation).

In the spring, he writes to his friend Zmeskall: “Do you recollect the condition I am in—the condition of Hercules before Queen Omphale? Farewell, and never again speak of me as the great man, for I never felt either the weakness or the strength of human nature as I do now.” But writing to Wegeler on the second of May, he says: “For a couple of years I have ceased to lead a quiet and peaceful life. I was carried by force into the world’s life. Yet I would be happy, perhapsone of the very happiest of men, were it not that the demon has taken up his abode in my ears. Had I not read somewhere that man should not voluntarily take leave of life while he is still able to do one good deed, I should long have departed hence, and by my own act. Life is very beautiful, but, in my case, it is poisoned forever.” He asked for the certificate of his baptism, and this in a manner so urgent that it creates surprise. It was three months before the answer to the enigma was found, and Breuning wrote that he believed that Beethoven’s engagement was broken off. But it continues a mystery, even to this day, who his choice was. It has been surmised that it was his “immortal loved one,” or Theresa Brunswick. But we know nothing certain on this point. True, he had now acquired both fame and a position which raised him above all fear of want. But she was thirty-two years old, and he hard of hearing. In addition to this, there was, on his side, a relationship of the nature of which we shall yet have something to say. Her passion, if such there was on her part, must have been prudently concealed; and it is certainly remarkablethat, from this time forward, her name is not mentioned by Beethoven. However, her niece, Countess Marie Brunswick, who is still living, expressly writes: “I never heard of any intimate relation nor of any love between them, while Beethoven’s profound love for my father’s cousin, Countess Guicciardi, was a matter of frequent mention.” But Giulietta had at this time long been Countess Gallenberg. The solution of this mystery, accordingly, belongs to the future.

On the other hand, we have a few notes to Gleichenstein, who married the younger Malfatti, the following year. In one of them we read: “You live on still, calm waters—in a safe harbor. You do not feel or should not feel the distress of the friend who is caught in the storm. What will people think of me in the planet Venus Urania? How can one judge of me who has never seen me? My pride is so humbled, that even without being ordered to do so, I would travel thither with thee.” And, in the other: “The news I received from you cast me down again out of the regions of happiness. What is the use of saying that you would send me word whenthere was to be music again? Am I nothing more than a musician to you and to others? Nowhere but in my own bosom can I find a resting-place. Externally, to myself there is none. No, friendship and feelings like it have only pain for me. Be it so, then. Poor Beethoven, there is no external happiness for you. You must create your own happiness. Only in the ideal world do you find friends.” The sketch of that and Klaerchen’s songFreudvoll und leidvollwere found in the possession of Theresa Malfatti. When Gleichenstein was engaged, the feelings of the man who had been so bitterly deceived overflowed. But how could the young girl of eighteen dare to do what the grave Countess would not venture? Theresa Brunswick died unmarried. Theresa Malfatti married, in 1817, one Herr von Drossdick. Nevertheless, Beethoven’s intercourse with the family continued.

We next hear of his acquaintance with Bettina Brentano which led to his meeting Goethe in person.

Her brother Francis had married a Miss Birkenstock, of Vienna. Beethoven had beenlong and well acquainted with the Birkenstock family. Bettina Brentano herself was betrothed to Achim von Arnim, and her deep love of music had inspired her with a genuine affection for Beethoven. One beautiful day in May, she, in the utmost simplicity of heart, went, in company with her married sister, Mrs. Savigny, to Beethoven and met with the very best reception. He sang for herKennst du das Land, with a sharp and unpleasant voice. Her eyes sparkled. “Aha!” said Beethoven, “most men are touched by something good. But such men have not the artist’s nature. Artists are fiery and do not weep.” He escorted her home to Brentano’s, and after this they met every day.

Bettina at this time sent Goethe an account of the impression made on her by Beethoven’s appearance and conversation. Her charming letters are to be found in the CottaBeethovenbuch. They show how exalted an idea Beethoven had of his own high calling. She writes: “He feels himself to be the founder of a new sensuous basis of the intellectual life of man. He begets the undreamt-of and the uncreated. What can such a manhave to do with the world? Sunrise finds him at his blessed day’s work, and at sunset he is as busy as at early morning. He forgets even his daily food. O! Goethe, no Emperor or King is as conscious of his power and of the fact that all power proceeds from him, as is this man Beethoven.” And Goethe, who “loved to contemplate and fix in memory the picture of real genius,” who well knew “that his intellect was even greater than his genius, and who frequently throws from himself a luminousness like that of lightning, so that we can scarcely tell, as we sit in the darkness, from what side the day may break,” invited him to Carlsbad, whither he was wont to go every year.

The two remarkable letters to Bettina of the 11th of August, 1810, and the 10th of February, 1811, the autographs of which have since been found, show us how deeply the heart of our artist was stirred by love at this time. They are to be found in “Beethoven Letters.” A work of his composed about this time, theQuartetto serioso, op. 95, of October, 1810, throws some light on this love, and yet it rises far above the painand the sorrow of the situation in which he found himself. Heavy thunders announce Vulcan at work; but in thefinale, how Beethoven’s giant mind frees itself from itself! The noble, powerful soaring Trio op. 97 dates from the spring of 1811, and, especially in theadagio, gives evidence of wonderful heartfelt bliss. But the fact that in this period no other compositions were written would go to show the influence of bitter experience. It may be, however, that the commission he received for the plays “The Ruins of Athens” and “King Stephen,” took up the best portion of his time; and, besides, the two symphonies had to be finished. The songAn die Geliebtealso belongs to this year 1811, as well as the principal draft of op. 96, the charmingly coquettish sonata for the violin which was finished in 1812, on the occasion of the visit of the then celebrated violin player Rode to Vienna.

Beethoven’s work on these two plays took up the summer of 1811, but they were not put upon the stage until the spring of 1812. At the same time, an opera was wanted for Vienna. It was the “Ruins of Babylon.” He also received an invitation to Naples, where CountGallenberg was director of the theater. We next find him traveling to Teplitz, a bathing place, where he formed a more intimate acquaintance with Varnhagen, Tiedge and Elise von der Recke. Amalie Sebald, a nut-brown maid of Berlin, twenty-five years of age, was stopping with Elise. Amalie had a charming voice, and was as remarkable for her intellectual endowments as for her beauty of physique. Beethoven, spite of his many disappointments, was greatly taken with her. Her picture is before us. Her eye betokens intellect and nobility of soul, and her mouth extreme loveliness. Beethoven subsequently wrote to Tiedge: “Press the Countess’s hand for me very tenderly, but very respectfully. Give Amalie a right loving kiss, when no one is looking.” He did not see Goethe on this occasion. He was at Teplitz again the following year, when his meeting—of which so much has been said and written—“with the most precious jewel of the German nation,” as he called Goethe, when writing to Bettina, occurred. We can here give only the principal incidents of that event.

The Austrian imperial couple, their daughter,the Empress of France, the King of Saxony, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and a great many Princes were there. The company already in the place was joined by Goethe, the jurist Savigny and his brother-in-law, A. von Arnim, together with his charming wife, Bettina. Beethoven himself writes on the 12th of August, 1812, to his Archduke in Vienna:

“I was in Goethe’s company a great deal.” And the poet, writing to Zelter, passes the following judgment on Beethoven: “I became acquainted with Beethoven in Teplitz. His wonderful talent astounded me. But, unfortunately, he is an utterly untamed character. He is not, indeed, wrong in finding the world detestable. Still, his finding it detestable does not make it any more enjoyable either to himself or to others. But he is very excusable and much to be pitied. His hearing is leaving him. He is by nature laconic, and this defect is making him doubly so.”

The remarkable incident related in the third letter to Bettina, a letter which has been widely read and the authenticity of which has been much contested—for the original does not seem to be extant—Bettina herself describes in a letter to Pueckler-Muskau. Goethe, she says, who had received many marks of attention from the Princes present, was desirousof testifying his special devotion to the Empress, and in “solemn, unassuming expressions” signified to Beethoven that he should do the same. But Beethoven replied: “What! You must not do so. You must let them clearly understand what they possess in you; for if you do not, they will never find it out. I have taken quite a different course.” And then he told how his Archduke once sent him word to wait, and how, instead of doing so, he went away. Princes might indeed, he said, decorate one with the insignia of an order, or make a man a court counsellor, but they could never make a Goethe or a Beethoven. To such men they owed respect. The whole court now came in. Beethoven said to Goethe: “Keep my arm; they must make way for us.” But Goethe left him and stood aside with his hat in his hand, while Beethoven, with folded arms, went through the midst of them and only touched his hat. The court party separated to make place for him, and they had all a friendly greeting for our artist. He stood and waited at the other end for Goethe, who bowed profoundly as the court party passed him. Now Beethoven said: “I havewaited for you, because I honor and respect you, as you deserve, but you have done them too much honor.” Then, it is said, Beethoven ran to them, and told them all that had happened.

That his behavior, on this occasion, was not by any means dictated by any over-estimation of himself, but by a deep human feeling of equality—an equality which the artist finds it harder than any one else to assert and acquire—the whole course of Beethoven’s life, as well as his intercourse with people at this bathing place at Teplitz, proves. He there found Miss Sebald again. A series of very tender notes written to her tells us of his heartfelt and good understanding with this refined and clever North German lady, who made greater allowances for his natural disposition than were wont to be made. He writes in 1816: “I found one whom, I am sure, I shall never possess.” His admission that, for five years—that is from 1811,—he had known a lady to be united to whom he would have esteemed it the greatest happiness he could have on earth, was made in this same year. But, he added, that was a happiness not to bethought of; union with her was an impossibility, a chimera! And yet he closed with the words: “It is still as it was the first day I saw her. I cannot dismiss the thought of her from my mind.” He did not know that Amalie Sebald had been the wife of a councillor of justice named Krause. Again did he give vent to his feeling in the songsAn die ferne Geliebte—“to the distant loved one”—which bear the date; “in the month of April, 1816.”

This was the last time that Beethoven seriously concerned himself about marriage. Fate would indeed have it that he should soon become a “father,” but without a wife. Yet no matter what the personal wishes of our artist through the rest of his life may have been, or what the wants he felt, his eye was ever fixed on a lofty goal; and it was in the ideal world that he found his real friends. He finished the seventh symphony, and after it the eighth, in this fall of 1812. The coquettishallegretto scherzandoof the latter was suggested by the Maelzl metronome invented a short time before, and the strange minuet with its proud step is a hit at the high court society whomBeethoven so solemnly warned that the times of the old regime, when the principlel’état c’est moiobtained in society, were passed. These works are clearly expressive of the free and progressive spirit of a new and better age. It was the seventh symphony especially that, in the broadest sense, opened to Beethoven himself the hearts of that age. This symphony helped celebrate the newly-won peace established by the Congress of Vienna. Beethoven now entered a new stage of development, and rose to his full height as an artist and a man. Other works composed by Beethoven during this period are the following: 82 variations (1806-7);In questa tomba(1807);Sonatine(op. 79); variations op. 76 andLied aus der Ferne(composed 1809);Die laute Klage(probably 1809); Sextett op. 8b.Andenken,Sehnsuchtby Goethe;Der Liebende,Der Juengling in der Fremde(appeared in 1810); three songs by Goethe, op. 83, (composed in 1810); Scotch songs (commenced in 1810); four ariettes, op. 82, (appeared 1811); trio in one movement and threeequalefor four trombones, (composed in 1812) the latter of which was re-arranged as a dirge for Beethoven’s burial.

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